It is no secret to us all that as human beings we are always bound to feel pain to feel alone let alone feel insignificant. Because our humanity lies in how it is lived in the essence of relationship with oneself with others and most importantly with God. This constant interaction I believe helps us clarify our life perspectives, views and aspirations and how they fit in the goal of becoming fully human in Christ.
In the focal point of all this stands the cross...
...the best-known religious symbol of Christianity. The icon God's act of love in Christ's sacrifice at Calvary—"the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." It stands as a reminder of Jesus' victory over sin and death, since it is believed that through His death and resurrection He conquered death itself.
Christ’s Cross stands in solidarity with the other crosses endured by those who have chosen the path of following Jesus, it stands as a staggering reminder that God is present in the midst of pain it stands as a reminder to re-enter “the story of our hope renewed, aware again that the one cross of Christ is borne also by countless men and women, only a minute fraction of whom we know personally, but all of whom belong to us, truly belong to us -- since all belong to Christ.1”
Rowan Williams suggests that we understand spirituality in terms of “each believer making his or her own that engagement with the questioning at the heart of faith is far more than a science of interpreting exceptional private experiences; it must … touch every area of human experience, the public and the social, the painful, negative, even pathological byways of the mind, the moral and relational world. And the goal of a Christian life becomes not enlightenment but wholeness – an acceptance of this complicated and muddled bundle of experiences as a possible theatre for God’s creative work.2”
I agree with Williams’ understanding of spirituality because it suggests that this life in the present is the arena upon which encounter and transformation takes place alongside the whole range of human emotions that we experience in the here and now. Indeed the goal of the Christian life is one of wholeness –which is found not in ourselves or in our lives but in the one upon whom our very being from its creation and eventual completion rests –Jesus Christ, who challenges us to rest our faith in him and his promise of life in full (John 10:10).
1 O’Donovan, Leo. The Crosses of Christ (National Catholic Reporter, March 21, 2008) [http://ncronline.org/node/486] Accessed 16-08-2010
2 Rowan Williams, The Wound of Knowledge: Christian Spirituality from the New Testament and St. John of the Cross (Lanham, MD: Cowley Publications, 2003) p.113-114
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